Tap Tap

The knock on the door
always
comes at the wrong time,
when you’re lovemaking
on a sunny Sunday
afternoon,
during a drug-drop when
relatives pay a surprise
visit,
when the post delivery
hands-over a court date
as the landlady hammers
the door for way overdue
rent,
when your new lover drops
by with a surprise bottle of
wine and you’re already
fucked-up on narcotics
and your previous lover
is waiting on a call,
when a political or
religious pusher
relentlessly pounds
or when the
season of ghosts and
demons from your past,
rip the door clean
off its hinges,
it’s time to throw
away the key and
look out at the
countless shattered
doors
left in
your
wake.

One for Alfredo

First breath 1927, San Diego,
early years spent in Mexico
and then returned to USA in
1935 –
he was expelled from High
School for violence toward
a tutor,
sometime following he was
arrested for smuggling people
from South to North America,
spent 4 years in San Quentin
for possession of heroin and
whilst incarcerated painted
murals on the prison walls,
on release he worked as a
caricaturist for Disney for
2 years and in 1957 he
opened up his own Art
Gallery and in 1961 he
was apprehended for 1
lousy joint of marijuana,
Ajiijic, Mexico was his home
for a while where he
continued to paint and
sculpt and express himself
in various other mediums,
he returned to the States seeking,
as always,
neither fame or fortune
but continued creating
and died
in 2015,
how
Alfredo Santos,
his
life
and
work
have been kept secret
is a shameful,
sad, sin,
don’t take my word,
see for yourself
and make a
startling
discovery
that the
rich and ignorant
‘art establishment’
has, seemingly,
closed its
protected
doors upon.

For Marianne Joan Elliott-Said (1957 – 2011)

We met on a couple of occasions,
unfortunately, in a formal environment,
but she genuinely appeared taken that
I had recognised her and acknowledged
her unique impact upon me that remains
to this day:
straight off, she was so warm and
alive and we got grooving, she told me
of the horrific pedestrian injuries of
being hit by a fire truck some years
back and how she had been making,
producing and mixing recordings
recently, this was just a few years
before she lost to cancer:
Poly Styrene was doing it herself
decades before any sisters stepped
into the light, her spirit moved with
authenticity, blessed with talents
that stretched smoothly over many
mediums, creativity was deeply in
her heart and blood and were more
than just an extension of herself,
this was her life that reached out
across vast distances:
Marianne Joan Elliott-Said
sculptured pathways of beauty and
sadness, she carried the torch of
the muse, her voice and music
and artworks resonating
like a global choir of love and
peace:
Poly Styrene,
I hear you now,
I see you now,
I feel you now,
I sense you now,
standing before me
like a messenger
broken free from all
bondage
of this uncertain
world.

The Viewing

I couldn’t remember her name,
although we’d been dating for a
few weeks: an invitation came
for a private viewing of
Jonathan Coles
paintings and latest works:
within 15 minutes of the
opening, this woman, whose
name I couldn’t remember,
gripped attention by climbing
up into the loft rafters and
swinging and screeching
nonsense, hanging upside
down, exposing skimpy
panties and long, long legs
and streams of bright red hair
tumbling toward the ground:
‘Who the fuck is she?’
‘What the fuck is she doing?’
‘I don’t know,’ I told them
‘What the fuck! call her down
man! get her down!’
‘I don’t know her name,’ I said
‘Get her the fuck down now!’
‘Hey! Hey! come on now!
time to come down now!,’ I
shouted, waving my hands:
she dropped to the floor, the
loft studio stood still in utter
silence as she walked towards
me: she looked angry, serious:
‘Fuck you! I don’t know you!
I don’t know your fucking
name but you don’t fucking
tell me to stop enjoying myself!’
she screamed at me before
making her exit from the
studio and I never saw her
again, whatever, her name was,
but I guess, it didn’t matter
too much.

John D Robinson is a UK based poet: hundreds of his poems have appeared online and in print : he has published 14 chapbooks and four full collections of his poetry: he has also published a novel of fiction and a collection of short stories: he has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. 

You can find more of John’s work here on Ink Pantry.